


fates twined like the branches of a weirwood tree

by myladybrienne



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU, Brienne Fosters with the Lannisters, F/M, Pre-Canon, age shift
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-05-28 04:58:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19386976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myladybrienne/pseuds/myladybrienne
Summary: brienne is sent to foster with the lannisters when she is six years old and finds herself trying to befriend the lannister twins.





	1. Chapter 1

She was only six when her lord father sent her to foster with the Lannisters. Her mother was dead, her brother was dead, her two baby sisters were dead, and he wasn’t sure what to do with her.

Selwyn told her he had met Lady Lannister a number of times and she had always been _most pleasant_. _Most pleasant_ wasn’t the highest praise he might have offered to someone he was sending her far across the sea to _live_ with.

On the journey there, she tried to come up with reasons she might stay on Tarth and ways in which she might be helpful. He wouldn’t be swayed; parents go on for the sake of their children, but he had lost three and with them, the will to go on, even for her. 

For two years she had been raised almost entirely by her septa and that was not befitting of a titled lady such as herself. Septa Roelle wasn’t the _most pleasant_ of women at the best of times so to be rid of _her_ at least, she was thrilled.

Casterly Rock was hideous and frightening and as soon as they arrived, she found herself praying to the Seven to take her home again. Her father would stay two weeks before he started the return voyage, he had promised her that much. She clung to his robes as their ship sailed into port, and his vast form felt like the only familiar thing for a hundred leagues. 

She clutched her little fists in the Dornish silk even as he stepped down to the cobbled ground of the harbour, and as he lifted her down too.

Before them stood a brigade of strangers, waiting to welcome them.   
  
“Lord Tywin,” greeted her father, dipping his head just a touch and approaching to shake the unfamiliar man’s hand. He was balding on top of his shiny round head and his golden hair was giving way to silver. There was a miserable look to him that made her want to shy away. _He looks much meaner than Father._

“Lord Selwyn,” he answered in a rumbling tone that she wondered didn’t make the ground beneath them shake. “This must be Lady Brienne.”

Shyly, she approached. Her fear would not come in the way of her manners, she was not so cowardly as to forget herself. She dipped in a clumsy curtsy and glanced up at him with the nervous beginnings of a smile. 

Lord Tywin paid her little attention at all and she was glad for it. Her eyes wandered to the woman at his side, tired on the eyes and showing just the slightest curve of a mother’s belly. _She will be the closest thing I know to a mother now._

Beside her stood two blonde beauties: a pretty little girl with braids in her hair and a fine red silken gown, and a sullen little boy whose proud smile seemed terribly forced. _The twin lions that I might call siblings of a sort, if they don’t maul me in my sleep._

“You must be in hunger and thirst both after such a long journey,” Lady Joanna suggested cordially. “Why don’t we all head up for luncheon?”   
  
They had brought only a small procession with them. A handful of free riders joined them at Storm’s End in hope of cheap passage West, but they were still only twenty or so. House Lannister was well equipped to give room and board to a score of men and a young Lady.

It was cruel of her father to sit her beside Lady Cersei. They were set to be friends, but the little lion didn’t look at her as a potential companion, Brienne thought, but rather as an enemy. She wasn’t sure what she had done to offend the girl so quickly, but she feared things between them might be far beyond reconciliation already.

Stuck in the Westerlands with nobody at all to keep her company, she would be in terrible misery. Perhaps the brother would be kinder, she hoped, but he seemed dull as the stones of the castle walls. 

“You’re very tall for a girl,” Cersei observed aloud, and her tone was less than complimentary. Brienne blushed at her words but made no move to respond. “It wouldn’t matter so much if you were prettier, but the Gods gave you such a plain face.” 

The two girls watched in silence for a long moment. Brienne watched her cruelty and Cersei saw only her unwavering tenacity. Such steeliness was unbecoming on a face still round with the abundance of highborn youth and Cersei wondered if a smile wouldn’t suit her better.

“Don’t worry,” Cersei confided quietly, “Father will find you a good match. I have cousins far uglier than you married to Arryns and Baratheons. It needn’t trouble you, you might yet come into your features.”

Brienne wondered if that was why she was here. She knew her fate was to be wed to someone rich and titled but… _must the foundations be laid so early?_ Six years old seemed a little excessive even for a girl so unbecoming as she.

She turned her eyes down the table's length to her father and watched the way he feigned happiness in the company of others. _Would he smile at all with nobody there to watch?_ He’d smiled for her a thousand times these past years, though with each one, it seemed more a grimace.

“We can show you the Golden Gallery once we’re dismissed,” Cersei suggested. _We._ Brienne’s eyes flickered across to the quiet boy who sat and stared at his half-eaten meal. She wondered what was wrong with him, he seemed so terribly lonely. _Might he be in need of a friend,_ she wondered. 

The castle was terribly bleak, and as she ate the fine cuts of meat and the sweet white bread that tasted so unfamiliar to her, she wondered if her father might not let her come home. He would not, of course, for he was tired of trying to rear her. This was her home now, and she ought to be grateful. 


	2. Chapter 2

The Golden Gallery was grey but for the sunlight that spilled through its tall windows and the magnificence adorning each wall. Her eyes rose to the ceilings where a great chandelier hung, and she wondered what poor soul was bid to light the dozens of tiny candles each morning and blow them out each night.

At the hall’s far end, there was a painting of a tall, gangly man who struck fear into Brienne’s bones.

“That’s Lann the Clever,” Cersei told her. “He was devious and smart, and he took this castle for his own without even drawing his sword. He was the very first Lannister.”

The young girl beamed wistfully up at the picture and Brienne wondered if there wasn’t something devious about the fair-haired beauty. The Lannisters were the richest of all the great houses and yet nobody but the King had any respect at all for them. Her father had sent her there because he knew the opportunities it would bring, but she saw the way he behaved around Lord Tywin, and she took note that she couldn’t trust the Old Lion as far as she could throw him.

“That shield mounted on the wall was Tybolt Lannister’s. The one he won the tourney at Ashford Meadow with.”

Cersei looked at all of it with a strange lust. The type of longing people had for things they knew they’d never have but wanted it nonetheless. _But she’s so beautiful,_ thought Brienne, _what could she want with a shield?_

Her eyes went unbidden to Jaime, stood beneath a wooden harp that looked out of place among the finery. She wondered what it was and what it represented. This room was a _gallery_ designed to showcase the greatest triumphs of House Lannister over the years. It held the same function as the dragon skulls in the throne room of the Red Keep; it reminded people of the power they faced. 

“What is it?” she asked quietly as she took a stride towards him.

“The harp of Ellyn Reyne’s court musician. When my father took hostage the ladies of Castamere, he took Kevan of Kayce too and he bid him play _The Rains of Castamere_ to the captive ladies every hour of the day inside their cell. They wailed so loudly so that my father took their tongues and then they wailed even louder still. The Silent Sisters took them into their order and House Reyne fell to nothing,” Jaime regaled with quivering breath. “All that remains is the song and the story behind it.”

There was no pride in his tone. His sister spoke with such wonderment of the fine deeds of her ancestors, but Jaime seemed almost ashamed. Brienne wondered if he wasn’t kinder than his determined glare might let her think.

Cersei snatched up her hand suddenly and dragged her down the great long room to a fine goldleaf cloak. _The mother’s cloak._ It was beautiful and crimson and vast to her gaze. The edges had started to fray just a little and the years had begun to fade the bright, bold silks, but it was still magnificent.

“We’ve a new one now. Father had a fresh one made for his own wedding, exactly the same, but we keep the old one here for show. Ser Damon Lannister had this one made for his betrothed Cerissa Brax. He married her for love against his father’s wishes and she gave him two strong sons, and ever since, it’s been believed that those who wed _without_ it will be cursed to a loveless, childless fate.”   
  
Each house had their Mother’s cloak. The one Brienne’s father had shown her when she was even smaller than six was blue and silver and beautiful and she had longed one day to wear it for her maiden’s cloak. Galladon might have used it for _his_ wife once upon a time, but he was dead and there were no more Tarths to make use of it.

She wondered what the cloak she wore on _her_ wedding day would look like. Would it be black and grey with the colours of the Eyrie, or green like the grass of House Tyrell? Her hopes were not so high as that and yet Cersei had _told_ her that her father could make it true. Nobody could find her a finer husband than Lord Tywin.

“You should meet my ladies. You didn’t bring anybody with you so I suppose they’ll have to be _your_ friends too, but I don’t mind. They’re nothing worth squabbling over,” Cersei said with such a contempt that Brienne wondered if they were really friends at all. “I’ll go and find them. Wait here.” 

Brienne’s eyes lingered on the cloak for a moment before glancing to an empty display hook beside a painting of another green-eyed stranger. The bang of the door closing behind Cersei made her jump, but she didn’t turn to the sound. _A missing ornament._ It made her terribly curious. 

“It’s for _Brightroar._ Our ancestral blade,” Jaime told her as she sidled up next to her. “The Lion King took it with him across the Narrow Sea and never returned. I’ll find it one day and bring it home.”

She wondered if he would. He was slight and shy, but he was still a boy. There was plenty of time for him to become a valiant knight before he went off on any quests. _He would look quite handsome in a golden suit of armour,_ she thought. _But handsome men are made killers just as quickly as hideous ones._

His eyes were full of that familiar determination of a child who’d never been knocked down. It reminded Brienne of her brother. _No swordsman could have killed him, only the might of the Gods behind the curl of the waves could do that._

The hall was bright with high noon and still it felt like they were stood in shadow. Brienne remembered how she was stuck here; at least she had the sea air to keep her lungs clear but where she had once known white sands, there were only a vast grey cliff face. She wanted to go home.


	3. Chapter 3

Jeyne Farman was a chubby, little girl swathed in rich fabrics that did no good in hiding her rotund figure. Most would be embarrassed to be seen with such a girl but Cersei was cleverer than them. Ugly company only made her seem fairer in comparison, and with Brienne and Jeyne for her companions, she’d be believed the most beautiful girl in all of Westeros.

She wondered that they didn’t at least _try_ to look a little better. Cersei had watched Jeyne gorge herself on sweet meats and cakes at every feast as though she needed them, and she had seen the way that Brienne changed into slacks and shirts as quickly as she could find an excuse to.

Melara Hetherspoon was a different kind of beast to tame. The slight girl was pretty but for the freckles that marred her complexion, and she dressed well enough. Her problem was something of a finer sort: she was too loud.

Her voice infuriated every ear it met. Cersei often commanded silence from her, only to hear her whispering away to Jeyne all the same, and she considered there might be something of ill mind in the girl. No man would ever marry a girl so boisterous as she, not without a great house’s legacy at her back. 

“There’s going to be a feast, before your father leaves. Everyone will come, I think. The King’s been looking for an excuse to travel west and it’s come at just the right time. He’s already on his way here with the entire court,” Cersei told them all as they sat in her solar and ate lemon cakes. “It’s going to be so wonderful.”

They’d never seen this side to her. She was careful to reserve her softness for the right time and this was it. If she was let them see what it meant to her, they might be careful not to make fools of themselves. 

Brienne was wearing a coral silk gown and she looked most uncomfortable in it. She was by no means slim, but such a dress shouldn’t have left her heaving quite so. _I’ll have to teach her how to act a little better,_ Cersei thought, _or the poor girl will be torn apart at court._

Her mind returned to Jaime. She wondered where he has. Their father had stolen him away from the afternoon and she worried that her mother had told him _something._ Not the truth of it, or her brother would be shipped off somewhere far beyond her reach and she’d be betrothed to first stupid little noble boy her father could find. But there was _something_ going on: they’d taken a child to foster as her mother’s womb quickened, that was the strangest of it all.

“Brienne,” she began. “Why was your father so eager to send you away? It seems odd to me, I’ve realised.”

The blush that rose in her cheeks was unflattering against her freckles and she hoped the girl might get the tendency under control before she met anybody important.

“He feared that growing up around so many men might cause problems. There are few women on Tarth but for the fishwives and the septas. There are no girls my own age.”   
  
_Funny,_ Cersei thought, _that her father thinks he can fix her so easily as that. It is not the absence of women, Lord Selwyn, but the absence of womanliness inside of her that is the problem._  
  
“Well, there are plenty here,” Cersei assured her with a laugh.

She watched the way Brienne was with the other girls and decided that she _preferred_ Brienne. There was _something_ about her: a bit of substance to her that most girls would shy away from. Perhaps she could be the friend Cersei had been looking for all her life.

The empty plates were cleared away and Cersei hoped she might steal away to her brother. She missed him so dreadfully and they had been torn apart so viciously by Joanna, and all she had wanted was his love. There was a loneliness that consumed her each night now and kept her bed cold no matter how she wrapped herself up.

Brienne was the perfect distraction and Cersei knew it for a certainty. Her mother _resented_ her for not needing her every second of the day but a sweet, young thing like Brienne would keep her occupied. 

“We should change for dinner. It’ll soon be time to head down.” 

At dinner that night, they ate and chattered, and Brienne made the best impression she could upon Lord Tywin and Lady Joanna. Cersei found it rather sweet the way she doted on the aging pair. On another, it might’ve seemed devious, but precious Brienne could do no wrong.

“Brienne, darling, would you like to join me in my solar for breakfast tomorrow morning? We ought to get to know each other a little better, I think.”   
  
Cersei was pleased to hear the words out of her mother’s mouth. She’d be able to sneak off and find Jaime. Melara and Jeyne could be occupied easily enough, and she’d find him.

 _Thank the Seven,_ she thought, _for this blessing dressed up in disguise. Perhaps I’ve finally found an ally inside these godsforsaken walls._

That night, she and Brienne stayed up together for hours and it was the first _real_ conversation Cersei had known in weeks. She’d forgotten that people often _disagreed_ in polite conversation and it was perfectly normal. All of her friends were so terribly agreeable.

Brienne hurried off to her own chambers long after the servants were in bed and Cersei worried that she might get lost. She didn’t know the castle yet, she needed someone to teach her. _I could teach her._


	4. Chapter 4

There was barely any sunshine inside the Rock’s walls. What little light could be mustered however was found in Joanna Lannister’s solar. Everyone called It _hers_ but technically it was theirs. Tywin spent no time there at all but to sleep and to fuck. It was _her_ place.

Fresh picked flowers adorned every surface and there were fine tapestries hung upon the walls, it was a far cry from the stony sameness of the castle beyond. Joanna wondered if it wouldn’t confuse Brienne to see such beauty hidden in amongst them.

“Good morning, Brienne,” she greeted warmly as Wylla opened the door and let her in. “Wylla, why don’t you leave us and go find yourself a little breakfast?”   
  
The ladies’ maid scurried off with a blush and a curtsey, mumbling her thanks as she went.

Colour rose in Brienne’s cheeks as she approached the table at which Joanna sat with a modest breakfast of bread and fruit laid out before her. There were berries and grapes and a bowlful of pears. 

“Did you sleep well, dear?” Joanna asked. “Come and sit down.”  
  
Brienne nodded timidly as she took the seat beside Joanna and forced a smile onto her face.

“Thank you for asking me to join you, Lady Joanna,” she mumbled shyly. “Everyone’s been terribly kind.”

 _So sweet,_ Joanna thought. It was strange to think she was barely younger at all than Cersei. She knew that it wasn’t age that had made her daughter so harsh, however, it was father’s blood.

“Tell me, how was your journey here? I know travelling can be quite a bore.”

She reached for a bread roll and then began buttering it for herself. As she watched her curiously, Brienne bit her lip and considered herself as Joanna tore shreds from the roll with dainty fingers and brought it to her lips. Joanna smirked at her a little and reached over the table to drop some bread onto _her_ plate.

“Oh, thank you,” she muttered, reaching for a knife. “The journey was actually alright. Seamen have the most fascinating stories to tell! It took a long time though, and it felt like we were moving at a snail’s pace. I shouldn’t complain; the tides weren’t kind to us.”   
  
_Seamen,_ Joanna thought. What wild life was her father allowing her to live? It would be hard to gauge just how well she could control her. There was no need to _tame_ her, that wasn’t the goal at all. She wanted to keep her just a little wild, if she was to ever contend with Cersei.

The bread was fresh from the kitchens and she wondered if Tywin hadn’t asked them to make up a fresh batch for her. She hadn’t seen him lately and she missed him terribly. With Lord Selwyn here, he was even busier than normal and didn’t have time to spend with her.

“Will you miss your father once he goes home?”

“Terribly, but I understand why he’s brought me here and I can’t bring myself to be mad at him for it. He’s only doing what’s best for me.” The look in her eyes told a different story; not one of anger, but of hurt It seemed. Joanna wondered that the girl didn’t feel a little abandoned.

As she ate the bread roll with all the delicacy she could muster, Joanna wondered if the girl wasn’t going to fit in quite perfectly at The Rock. She’d be a novelty, no doubt, but so were all the Lannisters. She would fit in just fine with all the misfits.

The way her blue silk gown clung to her awkwardly was spectacle enough. Brienne wasn’t pretty, nor was she bid the courtesy of a fine lady, but she would suit well enough; a true lady would be trampled under the tiny, furious feet of Cersei Lannister.

“I do hope you’ll be happy here, Brienne.” _I really do._  
  
The bread settled on her stomach and she felt it threatening to return. Pregnancy didn’t suit her. She had hoped that after the twins, nothing could be quite as dreadful, but the little one inside of her was causing just as much trouble.

Brienne reached for a grape and popped it into her mouth.   
  
“Is it true that the King and his court are coming?” she asked shyly.

Of course, it had already reached Brienne’s ears. Tywin should never have told the children. They both knew well enough how to keep a secret when they wanted to, but it didn’t stop Cersei being a terrible gossip when she felt like it too. She’d likely told _everybody_ inside the castle.

“Indeed it is, little one,” Joanna answered with a warm smile. “Does that excite you?”   
  
The girl nodded her head eagerly and conjured a toothy grin. The king might take a liking to her, Joanna thought but it was worry that struck through her, not joy. Were King Aerys to take a fancy to the girl as a friend for Prince Rhaegar, she’d be stolen away before Joanna had a moment to object.

“I’ve never a King before, nor a prince, nor a princess. Tarth doesn’t get many important visitors and suddenly everything’s happening all at once and it’s just so thrilling!”   
  
The hope in the young girl’s eyes made Joanna’s heartache. She had seen that in her children once, before it had been scared out of them. She herself had known it before the King had tried to force himself upon her half a dozen times.

“There is to be a tourney in the capital at the end of the year, to celebrate King Aerys’ tenth year on the throne. I wasn’t going to bring the twins, I knew how Cersei would hate to travel but if you’d _like_ to come.”

Brienne’s face was flush with the excitement of it all and the grin across her cheeks was impossible to hide. _Such a sweet girl,_ Joanna thought, _I will love her as my own._


End file.
